15.05.12 :: Ding Dong Hello Lincoln! My @COSstores Striped Tee, @Matalan old Glitzy Midi Skirt & @LamaPeach Paige Boots look inspired by @refinery29 (I LOVE YOU GUYS!)

So everyday I get a few cool little bite-sized fashion and beauty titbits from the guys @refinery29. I always make time to check out their latest DIY fashion tips, or to ponder over their glorious ‘how-to-wear-it’ style articles that they write so well! I’m not even sure how I stumbled across their site… but I’m bloody glad that I did! Refinery29 is should be every good and bad girls go-to guide for the very best accessible fashion and beauty features without all that sugary sweetness that people sometimes pile on top to make an average article edible. Excuse the food pun, but that’s often how it is.

So anyway… the ballsy gals at Refinery29 like to do things a little differently. Their articles are slightly 'edgier’ - for want of a better word. They cut out the crap. They write for the likes of you and me that want to know how it is, and more importantly, how to achieve it.

So yesterday, said email pops up in my inbox and their Hot Fashion Story for the day was all about jazzing up your old striped t-shirts in new and interesting ways… see it here: 6 Brilliant Ways To Dress Up A Striped Shirt.

I saw their slideshow and was greatly inspired by the 'Add A Glitzy Skirt’ idea. So last night I went bed dreaming of what my OOTD (Outfit of the Day) for today was going to be to fit in with the ’re-inventing’ the striped tee theme.

I wore my old striped navy blue and nude colour horizontal striped flared bottom tee from the Cos Store in Bullring, which I bought in the sale for about £15 last year after being introduced to the brand by my great friend Joe Mitchelmore aka @MadeByOthers. When I first entered a Cos store I was pretty in awe of the sleek store layout and you could say a little bit intimidated by it - in equal measures - up there on the glamourous, somewhat, elusive third floor of the Bullring Shopping Centre.

I thought it was going to be mega mega pricey. I was wrong. Think of Cos as a cut above the likes of H&M (of which the brand is associated) and a little bit like a posher Zara and you get my idea. It is high street fashion for those looking for that 'something else’. Beautifully tailored and very well-made, lovely fabrics and sensibly priced. It’s fashion for the Twenty-somethings and up! I love it.

I had bought my Cos Tee a good while back, (last year I think?) on a whim, visiting Birmingham for a film screening and meeting Joe for chinese. It was a hot day and I’d been travelling about a bit so wanted to freshen up. And so splurged on a £15 tshirt and et voila! Felt so much better about myself.

I have worn the Tshirt a handful of times since, with tailored trousers, skinny jeans and denim shorts, but never with a skirt. It was time for a change. I dug it out of my wardrobe, gave it a good iron, and rooted around for the old Matalan Papaya Dark Navy Midi Skirt with a glitzy silver stripe through it (A skirt that must be a good 8 years old or more…) and decided that today I was going to marry them together… cinched in at the waist, of course, with a skinny tan leather belt.

Because the weather was said to be a little temperamental in Lincoln today, I decided a pair of Navy tights would do the trick and also my Lama Peach *Paige Boots to hop over puddles. (*Just to see if, yet again, they’d go with another completely different outfit ensemble and they DID! HAPPY! HAPPY!)

I finished the look off with a short pearl necklace and a slick of Dior Addict Firework Red Lipstick.

I’m working in Lincoln for the next couple of days. It’s such a mega commute from my house, about 2 hours in the car and around 2 ½ hours by train - so sometimes a 5 hour round commute! However, tonight to cut out the horrid travelling, my bed for the evening is at the divine, newly restored, Old Palace Hotel in Lincoln. We got a great deal as we’d booked months ago before the renovation work was even finished and the first guests had even slept in their beds! The hotel is situated right next to the glorious Lincoln Cathedral and our rooms are ensuite with a lovely bathroom and we get a fry up in the morning - what more could a girl ask for? So, for the next few mornings, it won’t be the pigeons coo-ing above my window at home that I’m woken up by - it’ll be the bells ding-a-linging in the Cathedral!

Nice.

Sweetdreams!

Photography: ©Lucie Kerley